Abel
by silverkitten919
Summary: There is only so long you can run from your destiny, even when it is as grim as Chris's. When the fate of the world rests on you fulfilling it what would you do if your destiny was to die?


**Hi everyone,**

**This is just something that bounced around in my head yesterday and I felt like writing it out and it turned into a nice little self contained one shot.**

**I am not really trying to make any biblical connotations here. Yes the story of Cain and Abel is from the Bible but I'm pretty sure it is from the Koran and the Torah as well so I am just using it in the context of a creation story that was then taken and incorporated into many religions.**

**I also mention Arthur and Morgan (Le Fay). In my version Morgan is Arthur's younger brother who when his brother takes the throne disagrees with the heavy handed way Arthur is ruling the people. Arthur exiles him but when Morgan starts creating a rebellion against his brother Arthur seeks him out and kills him. Through the remorse of killing his brother, Arthur starts to rule in the way Morgan wanted and becomes the great King told of in the legends. Over time, Arthur's time as a Warlord like king is removed from the stories and Morgan is morphed into the villain (and becomes female) who raised a rebellion to try and cause anarchy within the peaceful kingdom.**

**This story starts in the week that Chris was seeking out the soothsayers and oracles about his future (_I dream of Phoebe_) and ends just after _The Courtship of Wyatt's Father_.**

**I don't own Charmed and I think it is pretty safe to say the story of Cain and Abel is out of copyright.**

**Please enjoy.**

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**Abel**

Chris walked down an ally. This place was known to be where all the psychics were centred. To the non magical realm, it was a place where hippies and crazies hung out or where a desperate person would go to get their future read, but to the magical realm it was San Francisco's hub of psychic energy. A place where experienced elders would teach new comers to harness and control their power. He had found his way here as a small child when his empathy was out of control and his family was too distracted by his older brother needs to notice.

This time though he was not seeking out help with control or understanding of his own powers but knowledge of his own future. He had had little luck, every oracle or fortune teller he had seen had been unable to read the future of the man out of his time. He had no reference point of existence anymore so with nowhere to start from meant they could not see beyond for his future. They could only guess what might happen in the next few weeks, that if he was not conceived he would not exist. It was that one fact that they all agreed on and as such his future looked very grim.

As he walked towards the end of the ally to orb out a voice caught his attention.

"Hello Abel!" the familiar voice said and Chris spun around.

He turned to the old woman, he knew her, he knew her well but she did not know him... yet. Mariabelle the most powerful psychic in the ally, probably in San Francisco if not the world... for the time being at least... until he existed ... if he was going to exist at all. "That is not my name." Chris replied and the woman raised her eyebrow. He knew that look. It said 'don't mess we me boy', he had seen it so many times because this woman had been his teacher, she had rarely taken students but when he came along she was the only one who could help him.

"Perhaps not in this life time, but it was in another, in your first, so doesn't that make it your real name?" She asked. It wasn't a question, more a challenge of thought... She had used these games with him as a child... will use these games... hopefully... to help his strengthen his mind and get control on his powers.

"What is a name anyway?" he replied, "Should we define ourselves by it or should we seek to create our own definition for it?"

She raised an eye brow and gave him a cheeky grin. There were few that could keep up with Mariabelle in a conversation on philosophy.

"How do you know that was my first name anyway, none of the others could see anything from me, a man out of time is a man impossible to see the future of they say."

"Nearly impossible, improbable maybe, but not impossible if you know what to look for or where to look."

Chris gave her a quizzical glance.

"Reading your future from you is impossible yes but reading it from others around you is not, from the ones who will come to play a major part in it. I have the rare ability to see my own future and what I see is grim, so is yours, but then yours is always grim isn't it? You speak of rewriting your destiny but you know it is impossible. Yours is one so deeply written in the creation of the world that it can never change. It is so deeply set in the great balance, the grand design that if it were to change it would change what we know and accept so terribly. You were the original sacrifice the first victim of evil where light and dark was created where the rules and ideals that govern each side were written." It had always humoured Chris that the Charmed Ones thought that he was evil when he first came here but he was the rebirth of the first pure soul, the first person to choose good over evil.

"I can change it." Chris said defiance in his voice, this woman had once told him he couldn't change it... not in the way he wanted too... to spare his own life, because that would always be his destiny to be killed by his brother and as long as that was fulfilled as long as destiny had its victim the world would spin on.

"You shouldn't. You know what will happen... you will tear the world apart. You will be responsible for more deaths that your brother, billions more, you will destroy existence, reality... you wouldn't be that stupid boy. You are not allowed to live long enough to be corrupted because if you are the very essence of good is corrupted and the world will fall into darkness."

"Well it is out of my hands now anyway... in a few weeks I won't exist... I will never have been born... I will have essentially wiped myself from existence... How will the world cope with that, will I wipe good out of the world completely? Don't worry about corruption, good just won't exist anymore."

"You need not worry about that, child. Destiny will always make sure you are born as it will always make sure you are killed. Cain must kill his Abel, Arthur must kill his Morgan, Wyatt must kill you Chris. This is far beyond good and evil, this is about existence. Perhaps I should never have told you who you were, perhaps then you wouldn't have this great ambition and determination to stay alive. You know your responsibility, you may be able to run and hide from it but there is only so long that this can keep going before you yourself are corrupted and the essence of good along with it. If I were you I would just get it over with."

"But I have to save my brother!" Chris cried trying to justify his reason for being here in the past other than simply to hide from his brother and from his inevitable death.

"You know your sacrifice is the only way to heal the damage done, to destroy the corruption in your brother. Nothing you can change in his infant version will make any real difference in the long run, you know this."

And he did but it didn't make it any easier, in fact it made it harder because that meant that the world was destroyed in the future because of him not because of Wyatt. Because when he was sixteen and his brother was storming towards him to kill him, his knowledge of his death allowed him to escape. But had he allowed himself to die the world wouldn't have gone to hell. He collapsed to his knees as he fully started to comprehend what he had done, the weather reacting to his emotions it suddenly started to rain.

Mariabella bent over and placed a tender kiss on her former/future student's head before scurrying inside so she didn't catch a chill. She watched the young man out of her window as he just sat there crying. It took him two hours but eventually the now drenched boy pulled himself off the ground and with one final glance through her window he orbed away.

In the weeks following Chris thought on his former teachers words and slowly came to accept to truth of them and his destiny. Like Mariabelle said he was conceived and as much as he tried to make sure it happened it wasn't his actions in the end that led to his conception, it was destiny.

That evening he walked past his mother's room to find all three of the sisters in there, his aunts surrounding his mum patting and talking in baby voices to her belly. He groaned as he heard Phoebe say, "Hello in there baby Chris." They had told his mother and now it was going to make it so much harder to say goodbye. He knocked on the door, it was better to do this sooner rather than later before they got even more attached to him.

His mother turned around with wonder in her eyes as she lay eyes on him, she leaped off the bed and came and wrapped her arms around him, "You're my son!" She said over and over again and Chris nodded confirmation into her shoulder as tears ran down his own face because where he was going she no longer existed and god he wish she did because it would make it so much easier and better for him if she was there to hold his hand as he faced his doom.

"I am." He final confirmed, "And I love you so much and I will always love you."

"I love you to baby." She said automatically before she realised what else he had said, "Will always love me? Chris what is going on, I'm right here, you sound like I'm dead or something." No she wasn't dead but he would be soon enough, and she was dead where he was going.

He took a deep breath, "It's time for me to leave, to go back to the future."

"But why?" Phoebe stated, "You have to help us save Wyatt, isn't that why you are here?" One of the reasons thought Chris.

"I now exist in this time and two of us shouldn't be in the same point in time at once." He made up, he could never tell these three woman the truth. They didn't understand time travel so they accepted his reason though they were really upset.

"Do you have to leave right now? This second? Or can I make you a nice home cooked meal before you go?" He smiled at his mother, she always made him feel warm inside.

He smiled down at her, "That would be nice, there is one last thing that I have to do anyway."

She stared up at him wanting him to elaborate but finally realised that he wasn't going to. "Well," she said with a sigh, "Go and do what you have to do but be back in an hour as I will have dinner on the table."

He gave a quick nod before orbing off.

He landed on the Golden Gate Bridge and took a deep breath, he knew Mariabelle said he couldn't change the future but there was one thing that he could change one thing that would make his whole family's lives better. He looked up into the sky and yelled at the top of his voice, "Leo!"

I took three more calls, "Leo, I really need to talk to you!" before the man descended from the heavens.

"What do you want Chris?" he snapped, Leo still didn't truly trust Chris, he hope by the end of this conversation he would.

"I want you to come home and not go up there to be a full time Elder, your family needs you more." The sentence seemed to shock Leo, it was probably the last thing he was expecting to hear from Chris the person who had been pushing him away the most.

"I'm an Elder, Chris, my place is up there, not down here. Why do you care anyway?"

"I care because your family needs you, they will need you, I will need you."

Leo was clearly even more confused, "You will need me?"

Chris nodded, "Sense for Piper." He instructed, "Do you feel, her."

"I feel her." The older man answered.

"Can you feel anything different?" he asked, he could here need in his own voice.

It took Leo a few moments, but after a while his facial expression changed from stoic to shock and wonder. "She's...she's pregnant! But how..."

"Do I really need to explain the birds and the bees to you?" He joked with a raised eye brown then winced at the thought of explaining sex to his father.

Then it clicked in Leo, "Last night, spirit realm. The baby is mine." He said with wonder.

"Who else's did you think it would be?" Chris asked in confusion but Leo wasn't paying attention to him, he was smiling and he sort out the soul of his newly conceived child. He suddenly went as still as a statue and a look of pain came over his face, Chris felt a huge wave of self loathing come over his father and he knew he had figured it out at last. He turned to Chris with a look of wonder on his face just like Piper had looked at him when she first found out.

"You're the baby!" Chris nodded his head. Both men stood there not knowing what to do. Chris had never had his father around so he was never comfortable around the man while Leo thought Chris hated him for all he had done to him.

After a long pause it was Chris who spoke, "You need to go and be with your family Leo, they are going to need you more than you know."

Leo looked confused, "They? Why aren't you saying we? You're family too Chris."

The men made eye contact for the first time, "I'm going back to the future, I have been running from my destiny for far too long and it is time I faced it."

"But you said that darkness had taken over the future, that Wyatt was evil! Why would you want to go back to that?"

"Because I have no choice, Leo." The father could see a deep sadness and despair mixed with acceptance and peace in his son's eyes.

"There is always a choice, Chris." He said stepping forward for the first time and taking hold of his son's arm.

"There isn't for me, there never was for me and there never will be."

"What are you talking about?" While Chris could lie to his mother, he couldn't to his father, the man would work it out the moment he was born and Wyatt and his little self touched anyway.

He undid the thick leather bracelet around the wrist of the arm his father held and showed him the symbol that he hid from the world. It consisted of a combination of lines and dots that to anyone else would look like a strange birthmark but he could see his father knew what it was. It was a symbol from the first language now long forgotten by all but the elders, it was an A.

Leo looked at the young man in wonder, he was standing holding the wrist of the original good, the most pure being in the universe and he had though that he was evil. The wonder slowly faded and was placed with a deep setting feeling of dread, if this young man was the rebirth of Abel, it ment his other son was the rebirth of Cain, the first evil, not that it meant that Wyatt would be truly evil. History had shown that it was remorse for his actions that would turn the older son back to the path of light but that would mean he would have to commit the act first... he would have to kill Chris, 'I have to face my destiny'. "No Chris, No! This cannot be true."

"I'm afraid it is."

"But Wyatt can't be Cain he doesn't have the mark!"

"He will, once I am born and we unite as brothers, then marks will appear on us both."

"Unite?"

"Once we touch, when you let Wyatt hold me, the marks will form. Mum though it was something sweet, that Wyatt was uniting us together somehow, she didn't know the truth."

"Then we won't let you touch each other, we will keep you separated." Chris swore he could see a wild desperation in the man's fiery eyes.

Chris gave the man a sad look, "It won't work, we will still be the rebirth's of Cain and Abel, marked or not and me and Wyatt need each other, just as the sisters need each other."

"You can't go back then Chris!"

"I have to, I have no other choice, it is my destiny to die and I have to die pure. We both know this, it just took me this long to accept it. I'm ok with it Dad. I have made peace with it and now I am ready to fulfil my destiny." Leo couldn't believe this young man sounded so ok with this. His son gave him a reassuring smile and he could see wisdom well beyond his years in the young man's eyes.

"Come on, Mum is making dinner and she would love to see you. You can't tell her about any of this, it would hurt her to much waiting for the day that one of her sons kills the other, she might even try and stop it, and she can't and neither can you, the consequences are too dire. You understand that don't you?" His father nodded and he orbed them both back to the manor.

The dinner, his last dinner was an awkward affair, but thing loosened up as the evening went on as each member accepted Chris was leaving though only one of them knew his true fate. As Leo watch his son laugh at his Aunts as the exaggeratedly clung to him tell him that he couldn't go because they wouldn't let him and no one could beat the Charmed Ones he could see the acceptance in his son and the fact that he just wanted to enjoy this last night with his family and he played along.

At midnight Chris hugged each member of his family in turn before waving his arm in front of the triquetra on the wall and stepping through the porthole he created. Tear's ran down the face all four adults all morning at his departure, and Leo mourning his imminent death.

At 1am in the future Chris was dragged by Wyatt's henchmen before his brother. At 1.02 a dagger was buried deep within his chest as Wyatt rage at his betrayal caused him to leap forward and end his life. Chris's body crumpled in his brother's arms and finally Wyatt could see what he had done. Horror and remorse took over his body, as he buried his head in Chris's chest. A huge wave of raw power released itself from the confines of Wyatt's body and vanquished every demon in a 100 kilometre radius. This Wyatt devoted the rest of his life to rebuilding what he had destroyed in the name of his brother. Or would have had that time line not been erased by a new one.

But because of the changes Chris had made, because of his time in the past getting to know his family, his warning of Wyatt changing which led to the exposure of Gideon's plot and his bringing his father back, Chris did change the future and the future that the older Chris went back to was erased and a new one grew in its place. Leo watched his two sons grow over the years, knowing what was going to come, not knowing when but knowing that he couldn't stop it. Wyatt never really showed any true signs of evil like he did in the other future but Leo watched as his son because angrier and more jealous to his beloved little brother. While Wyatt struggled at school Chris did not and was at the top of most of his classes. Chris excelled at sports and Wyatt while still good he was not as good as Chris. Leo watched the one sided rivalry grow and grow and grow and he knew 'the event' as he now called it was coming soon.

It happened one evening quite unexpectedly as Leo and Piper confronted their oldest son about his grades and the fact that it was looking like he wasn't going to be allowed to graduate. Comments like "Why can't you work as hard as Chris does?" And "Chris would never let himself get into this situation!" Were flown around and when an unsuspecting Chris poked his head in the room wanting to know what all the yelling was about, Wyatt rage was released on his brother in the form of his telekinesis and Chris who never thought his brother would hurt him was caught unaware. He threw his brother out the door and over the banister. The family heard a loud crack as Chris hit the ground below.

Chris was dead when they got to him, in fact he was killed instantly on impact his neck snapping and twisted at weird angle when the three of them rushed to him. Piper screamed out yelling at her husband and son to heal him. Wyatt in desperation hovered his hands over his brother but the glow didn't come, Leo pulled his oldest son away from the body of his youngest knowing full well that there was nothing any one could do. Destiny had struck and no one could fight destiny.

Chris's death did inspire the change in Wyatt that had been foretold. He became a great leader of good magic and a doctor in the mortal world at the same time. He strove at every moment to make up for his act and to hope that one day Chris would forgive him for what he did.

In the afterlife, Chris woke up with an ageless being smiling down at him. "Welcome home Abel, You did well child." Abel raised his eyebrows at the term 'child', while he was one of the oldest beings in existence he was always the eternal child, lucky to live past twenty.

Abel pulled himself to his feet ignoring the hand offered by the other being. "When will you send me to earth again Creator?" He asked. Abel's desire to live amused the creator greatly, while he offered the boy infinite comfort here in heaven, the boy was always eager to escape to the drudgery of life.

"In time my child. Patience is a virtue." And with that the eldest being left the other.

Abel walked forward to look through a small gap through to the living realm the creator had granted him to look through; it was not big enough for him to go through but enough to watch life unfold without him and what was inspired by his death. Abel watched his father wrap his arms around his brother comforting him. He could hear him scream out in to the air for Chris to forgive him. Cain didn't need to ask for his forgiveness because Abel knew it was not his fault, it had not been his fault for a very long time.

Abel craved life because it meant he would be with his brother and he cherished those few years they had together ever millennium even though they didn't know how important they were at the time.

Abel whispered through the crack, "I forgive you brother, I will always forgive you."

Wyatt turned towards his words, while he couldn't see him he heard him. "I will see you again brother, hopefully sooner rather than later." He replied. Yes, thought Abel, hopefully we won't have to wait another millennium to be together again, I love you brother.

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**Sorry to all those who wanted a happy ending, I wanted to give it one but I just couldn't.**

**I hoped you like it, I try and write things that I haven't read before so I don't really know if the ideas are good or not.**

**Please read and review.**

**And to all those who read my multichapter stories I haven't forgotten about them I have just had a period of writer block but I fully intend on finishing them.**

**Until next time**

**919**


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